Keeping up with Bears

Packers, Favre clinch playoffs, eye return to 1st

Packers 30, Browns 7

December 24, 2001|By Don Pierson, Tribune pro football reporter.

GREEN BAY — On an idyllic winter afternoon in Packerland, only the Bears were able to spoil coach Mike Sherman's day, so he ordered that no one tell him the Bears' score until after the Packers had brushed off the Cleveland Browns 30-7 to clinch a playoff spot.

Lambeau Field resembled one of those snow scenes encased in a glass ball, with Brett Favre shaking up the outmanned Browns and showering them for three touchdown passes. Young Browns quarterback Tim Couch contributed a welcome but unnecessary Christmas gift with an interception just before halftime that cornerback Tyrone Williams returned 69 yards for a touchdown, ending all pretense of a contest.

At 10-4, the Packers remain a game behind the Bears in the NFC Central with two games left--Minnesota at home and the New York Giants on the road. If the Bears falter, the Packers win the tiebreaker, but after losing their edge last week in Tennessee, Sherman didn't want to clutter his mind with Bears thoughts even though the Bears had defeated Washington before the Packers' kickoff.

"Win or lose, we had to win, so I didn't want to know," Sherman said. "I didn't let anybody tell me what the score was and I told them if they did, they were fired."

After a two-year absence from the playoffs, Sherman wasn't ready to celebrate in his second year as coach.

"It's a big step, but we still want to win our division and keep pace with the Bears," Sherman said. "Obviously, their win doesn't allow us to gain any ground, but we didn't lose any either."

Favre's three touchdown passes--two to tight end Bubba Franks and one to running back Dorsey Levens--gave him 30 for the season, running his NFL record of 30 touchdown seasons to six. Only Dan Marino with four and Favre have more than two such productive seasons in NFL history.

Favre also ran his record to 29-0 at home (Lambeau and Milwaukee) when the temperature is below 34 degrees. And he threw his third touchdown pass after trainers taped up a dislocated ring finger on his throwing hand.

"There was a little piece of meat came off it," Favre said. "It was kind of numb. One of the perks of cold weather--you don't feel it."

If the playoffs were to start now, the Packers would travel to San Francisco as a wild-card team, negating the kind of advantage they seem to have in Green Bay. But to hear and see Favre, you wonder whether the advantage isn't more man-made.

Favre said he was sitting at home Sunday with his dad before reporting to work but was not tuned into the Bears-Redskins game.

"I was watching the south Texas deer hunt," Favre said. "My dad was telling me the Chicago game was tied up and he asked who we needed to win between the Saints and Tampa. I said I had no idea. It doesn't matter. What matters is we win games. I couldn't tell you who's seeded where. You can waste a lot of energy on that."

Ahman Green ran for 150 yards and Levens for 71 against a Browns defense missing three-fourths of its starting defensive line. Still, it was 16-7 with the Browns driving when Couch floated a flat pass to Jamel White that Williams picked off.

"They were kind of playing like the game was over pretty much after that," Green said.

"We thought we were going to win, but we couldn't with the turnovers," Couch said.

The Browns are a brash bunch despite their 6-8 record. This was their most lopsided loss in coach Butch Davis' first season, yet Davis said: "When we left the locker room, we had an idea we could win this game. This was our most productive offensive effort in the last six or seven weeks."

Couch can only be buoyed by Favre's struggles as a young quarterback. In Couch's last seven games he has thrown 13 interceptions and only three touchdown passes, and the Browns are 2-5. In their first seven games he threw 10 touchdown passes and only five interceptions, and the team was 4-3.

Favre's touchdown passes to Franks on the Packers' first two series removed most of the day's tension. There was no hint of the kind of fan misbehavior that ruined the end of last week's Browns-Jacksonville game in Cleveland when bottle-throwers chased officials and players into the tunnel.

Two signs summed up the sentiment of Packers fans. One read: "Don't worry, ref. It's a sin to waste beer in Wisconsin." The other: "We don't waist (sic) beer here." The former appeared truer than the latter.